HS Baseball: "Rowdey" 1st inning lifts Beckley past Oak Hill

Friday night, Woodrow Wilson scored nine first-inning runs in a decisive win over Wyoming East.

Monday night at Thomas F. Parham Field, the Flying Eagles once again exploded right out of the gates.

Scoring eight runs in the bottom of the first, Woodrow Wilson soared past regional rival Oak Hill, 10-5.

"They came in and took care of business," Flying Eagles head coach Alex Williams said. These boys are phenomenal hitters, top to bottom, and it shows. They have plate discipline and swing at good pitches."

The visitors started early, scoring two run before the home team came to bat.

Back-to-back singles from Devin Richardson and Hunter Elswick, along with a two-out double from Carson Treadway staked the Red Devils to a 2-0 lead.

Woodrow Wilson was not fazed.

The Flying Eagles put together six straight hits and the hit-parade never stopped rolling.

Maddex Sims, Tyler Wilhite and Drew Gallaher all singled to load the bases for Brady Williams who delivered the fourth base-knock to tie the game at 2-2.

Gage Price then stepped in and hit a shot to deep center, out of the reach of the speedy Richardson for two more runs and the Flying Eagles never trailed again.

"They are not swinging at bad pitches," Williams said. "Tyler's pitching performance makes it easy too because he was locked in. He got settled in, pitched a complete game and pitched great. Both sides of the ball, these kids are playing great right now."

Parker Williams singled home Price before Oak Hill recorded the first out of the inning, but the home team wasn't done scoring.

"I thought we played clean the first inning, they just found holes," Oak Hill head coach Chris Hendrick said. "Beau (Elswick) missed the zone a little bit and they capitalized on it. That is part of this game."

A two-out walk to the No. 9 hitter came back to haunt Oak Hill when Sims returned to the plate to hit an RBI-single. Wilhite capped the explosion with his second single, scoring two more runs.

"You take that first inning away and we win the ballgame 3-2. That has been us all year," Hendrick said. "We usually give teams one big inning and we can't overcome it. We can't seem to figure out how to get over the hump."

The Red Devils trimmed the deficit back to three runs in the third stanza aided by a crucial error from the Flying Eagles, but again, the home team was not fazed.

"We couldn't find holes and the kids got down early after that first inning," Hendrick said. "Like I told them, there is six more innings here. We just need to win each inning going out and chip away."

A two-RBI single by Brady Williams in the bottom of the inning pushed the lead back to five runs for the final margin.

"I started the freshman, Beau, wanted to get him an opportunity because they had seen Aiden's (Smith) arm this year," Hendrick said. "I had everybody today, so I thought maybe we could throw "Johnny Whole-house" at them, but our offense didn't come around."